Like Sand in an Hourglass
by nouveaulove
Summary: A woman who ran away to protect her family will meet a man who can no longer run from his. As these two lives meet, past and present will collide, making both of them question the futures they had planned. Enjolras/Eponine, modern AU.


**Like Sand in an Hourglass**

_Chapter 1_

* * *

Eponine's alarm goes off while the world is still dark, the grating sound of it making her curl deeper into her covers as she gropes sightlessly for the off button. Once she is successful at silencing the annoyance, she squints at the numbers on the clock. Much too early for anyone in their right mind to be up, she decides as she rubs at her eyes. But she has a café to open and the bakers have already been there for hours and with only two opening shifts this week there isn't much to complain about. She throws the covers off, the chill of early spring air doing more to wake her up than the alarm did.

Eponine quickly scurries over cold floorboards into the bathroom, haphazardly throwing her hair into a clip before dashing into the bath to rinse off. After the quick shower, she pulls on jeans and a sweater as quickly as she can. Already running late, she tries to tug on her boots and brush her teeth at the same time and almost trips twice. After spitting toothpaste into the kitchen sink and rinsing her mouth out with tap water, Eponine double-checks her purse for her keys and phone.

Making sure that everything on her mental list is checked off, she makes her way across the hall to Gavroche's room. She opens the door as quietly as she can, slipping through the small opening. In between the pre-dawn sky and the hallway light, the room is easy enough to navigate even with the clothes and video games littering the floor (_hadn't she told him to clean this up?_). Gavroche sprawls across his bed, he has kicked off his blankets at some point in the night and Eponine takes care to rewrap them around him, tucking him in.

Sitting on the edge of bed, she brushes sandy colored back from his face and kisses his temple. "Hey, I'm leaving. Come by the café before school, I'll save you a chocolate croissant, 'kay." He knows this routine for when she works mornings but the urge to tell him still eats at her.

He opens his eyes momentary, mumbling something affirmative before promptly turning over and falling back asleep. Eponine smiles as she stares down at the boy, knowing the chocolate part would get his attention.

* * *

_She's fifteen when the nurse hands him over to her._

_Honestly, she isn't sure that she wants to see the wriggling creature at first, after watching her mother go through fifteen hours of labor and __holding her hand _(because her father isn't here, either too drunk or simply not caring), Eponine is mildly terrified and sure that she never wants anything to do with childbirth or children in general. They offer him to her mother first but she commands them to give him to Eponine before complaining about how she would have preferred another girl and already asking about pain meds.

_Her hands are shaking as she takes him. He's crying and his skin is still blotchy with shades of reds and purples but he is wrapped in a blanket with stars on it, so small and light that Eponine thinks his bones maybe as hollow as a birds. He quiets in her arms and she curls protectively around him._

_Hours later when he first opens his eyes, blue in the shade of a clear spring sky, to stare unseeingly up at her, Eponine knows she will do anything for this tiny creature she has only just met._

* * *

It's after eight when Gavroche arrives at the café and they've just finished with the first rush of the day. Eponine is scrubbing down tables and refilling sugar packets as fast as she can before the tourist crowd starts arriving in the next hour when she catches sight of him. "'Bout time you got up sleepy head. Your breakfast is in the back. You better hurry up, you've got school in a half hour."

He's already halfway to the kitchen by the time she's finished speaking and Eponine can practically hear him rolling his eyes at her. "Yes mother."

She catches sight of his outfit. "Is that the same shirt you were wearing yesterday?"

The grin he throws back over his shoulder gives her no confidence that it isn't and she sighs. She is filling the napkins when he steps out from the kitchens ten minutes later. Eponine can already see Gavroche trying to shove a large cookie (that Andre must have slipped him) into his backpack as fast as he can.

"Gav." She calls out and he has the decency to at least look sheepish at being caught. "Come here."

He comes, although it is the hesitant gait of a boy who believes himself about to lose his cookie (while she has no intention of taking it, letting him squirm isn't the worst thing). Once before her, she takes his face in her hands, trying unsuccessfully to smooth out his tangled locks.

"God boy, ever heard of a hairbrush?" Although she hardly has room to speak when her own hair was still clipped up without care.

"Mom, stop it, you are so embarrassing." Gavroche frowns at her fussing, trying to push at her hands.

Eponine laughs, scrunches up her nose at him and lets go. "Alright, alright. Get on out of here."

He's off and running, quickly scampering out the shop and down the street before she can blink. She watches as he narrowly avoids running into an elderly couple.

"Little punk." She mutters fondly and goes to grab more crème from the walk in refrigerator.

* * *

_Eponine reads every parenting book she can get her hands on._

_She warms milk, changes diapers, gives as many hugs and kisses as she can, holds him when he cries, skips classes when he catches a fever and won't stop fussing. She even gives up smoking, at least within the apartment, on principle alone (though she knows that her mother still smoked while he was in the womb). Eponine is no fool; she knows that if she does not do these things, no one will and Gavroche deserves someone putting him first._

_Montparnasse hates it, the way she mothers a child that isn't even hers. He tells her that she is his girlfriend and she should be giving him such attention. She doesn't even look up from the book as she mildly replies that maybe she shouldn't be his girlfriend anymore. Want of attention turns to anger which turns to fresh bruises along her arms and collarbone._

_But it doesn't matter; she can bare it all, just so long as she knows Gavroche'll start rolling over at four months and when it's okay to start giving him solid foods._

* * *

Musichetta arrives at the café just before lunch, beaming and bright as summer sunlight.

"I wasn't expecting to see you for another couple of hours. Didn't Joly have a doctor's appointment today?" Eponine asks as she kisses her friend's cheek in greeting.

Rolling her eyes at the mention of her boyfriends' name, Musichetta replies as she hops up onto the counter. "Bossuet is going to take him, although knowing his luck he'll be the one who needs the doctor by the time they get there."

Eponine laughs at the statement, although it is more fact than joke. "Just what did Joly think he was dying from this time?"

"Something I'm pretty sure only exists in _Game of Thrones_." Musichetta gives an indelicate snort and joins Eponine in her laughter. "Remind me why I put up with them, Ep."

"It's one of life's great mysteries."

* * *

_He's sixteen months when it first happens, or when she _first notices_ which is an even more terrifying thought. She arrives home late after a long night at the diner; one with too many unpleasant patrons and not enough tips, and goes to check on him. His collapsible crib is in the room she shares with Azelma by both choice and from lack of space in their condemnable apartment. He sleeps soundly and she is brushing back his hair, soft as bird down, when she becomes aware of how he favors one side. She moves the blanket to one side, already knowing and dreading what she will see._

_The sleeve of Gavroche's pajamas, dark blue with cartoon dinosaurs on them, is already pushed up to the elbow and in the dim light of the room Eponine can see the marks. Sees the way the purple stands out against pale chubby flesh. She is sure she could find more if she searches for them but she's has no desire to wake him. She'll have to go by the 24-hour drugstore and pick up some baby aspirin to mix in with his applesauce for in the morning._

_She feels hot and flushed with fury. She wants to find the person responsible and yell and curse at them, to claw at them until they bleed. But the fact is, she has been gone most of the day and there is any number of people who could have done this. Her father, mother, or even one of the endless number of men or woman who work for her father and always seem to be stopping by. It could have been because Gavroche knocked something over, or stood in front of the old half-broken TV for too long, or simply wanted attention that didn't want to be given. The list is endless and the thought leaves her feeling sick and powerless._

_The rage quiets and turns so cold that it descends upon her like winter, freezing the bones of her body. _No_, she thinks, _no. I won't let you hurt him.

* * *

The afternoon is slow and with both Eponine and Musichetta there, work is almost too easy. Eponine has the café's laptop open as Musichetta comes out of the back with a tray of fresh pastries.

"What are you looking up?" She asks as she puts the gougère into the display case.

"I'm still trying to find a birthday present for Gav. I didn't just want to get him another video game but it's looking that way." Eponine still scrolling down the Amazon homepage. "Oh, speaking of, are you still okay with having his birthday dinner here?"

Musichetta threw her a speaking glance while flicking crumbs at her face. "As owner, I feel I can safely say yes. How old he going to be again?"

"Eleven." Eponine groaned. "Makes me feel old."

"I can hardly believe it's been nine years since you came here."

"Me neither…"

* * *

_The decision to leave comes easily; it is the waiting that proves difficult._

_It takes a little over six months to save enough funds for the train tickets as well as the subsequent weeks that will follow it. Eponine gives her father just enough from her paychecks to keep him from asking questions. She makes money any way she can, some of it in through methods that make her sick as she scrubs at her skin in the shower after. _

_But, really, what will shame matter if it means Gavroche is safe?_

_She takes to hiding the money in a various locations, unwilling to risk losing all of it at once after too close of an incident two months in. As the savings grew, Eponine wonders at telling Azelma but isn't willing to take the risk. Azelma is sixteen, in love with a boy who will be lucky to see the other side of twenty considering the gang he runs with, plus she's still doing time at the girls' correction house because of her latest run in with the law. She also has a loyalty to their father that Eponine hasn't felt in years. No, it isn't worth the gamble. Eponine can be heartless when she chooses to be and any chance of not getting Gavroche away from this life lets her flip that switch easily enough._

_So she skimps and saves and plans. She doesn't tie up loose ends, lets Montparnasse think that they are still going to the music festival in the summer. She doesn't let guilt sway her, like when her mother, smelling strongly of gin, tells her how she'll always be her princess. So winter passes and once spring lessens the chill of the air enough to be reasonable, she says she is taking Gavroche to the park. _

_Eponine only takes what the diaper bag can hold, luckily there is not much to take in the first place, and walks away. She doesn't let herself look back._

* * *

"Seriously, since when did they start expecting 10 year olds to know rocket science?" Eponine complains at she looks over the worksheets. It's late afternoon and while the café is slow she attempts to help Gavroche with his homework.

The boy merely shrugs before taking too large a bite out of a bagel. "Does that mean I don't have to do it?"

"No, and take smaller bites before you choke." Eponine pushes her stool back before approaching the bar, setting her head in her arms against it. "Shit 'Chetta, I can't even help my kid with his homework anymore."

Musichetta merely chortled as she leaned across the counter. "Well then I guess it's a good thing you still got your looks isn't it?"

Eponine replies with a rude hand gesture, without raising her head.

"Saw that." Gavroche shouted over from his seat.

"You didn't see a thing."

Musichetta smirked at their exchange. "Look, just call a day and go home. You've been up since 4:30, go get some rest."

"Ya sure?"

"Yeah, Clara will be in for her shift any time and I've got it covered till then."

Eponine smiles gratefully before going to pick her bag out of the back. "'Kay Gav, pack it up."

After goodbyes, they are halfway home when Gavroche pipes up. "So, what are we having for dinner?"

Eponine looked down at him incredulously. "Seriously? You _just _ate."

He grinned, unabashed. "What can I say? I'm a growing boy."

"No, what you are is a bottomless pit."

But the comment is softened by the way she throws her arm about his shoulders and ruffles his hair.

* * *

_The train glides smoothly along the tracks as it leads them away from former lives. Eponine watches the way the landscape changes through the window, city giving way to countryside. She has never left Paris before, and with the steel and graffiti and dirty alleyways fading, the large golden fields of grain look like something out a fairy tale she read as a child. _

_Gavroche sleeps in her lap, hand fisted tightly in the material of her top, clutching at her as if she is the center of his world. It's only in the quiet of that peaceful moment, one that feels more dreamlike that wakeful, that she lets the frightened thought that's haunted her mind for months slip in._

_How is she to raise a child?_

_Eponine lets go of the thought, unwilling to let it rattle her resolution. She is nothing if not a survivor and she will make sure they survive this. She will not let Gavroche grow up in the same hell she did. She looks down at him, not noticing how she clutches him to her just as tightly._

* * *

It is an insistent buzzing that awakens Enjolras from a deep sleep. Somewhere beneath the layers of haze, he is dimly aware that it is his cellphone going off. Expecting a drunken call from Grantaire or perhaps Courfeyrac (it is not as if it would have been the first time), he rubs a hand over his face and picks up his phone without opening his eyes.

"Mm, what?" He grumbles around his hand.

"Enjolras."

The voice wakes him like little else could and he sits up quickly. It is a female voice, one he recognizes, and one he hasn't heard in years.

"You have to come home."

* * *

_She settles on a town in the south of Provence, a thirty-minute drive from the coast. It's small but not tiny, quiet and running mostly on tourism. She walks down the quaint streets and feels like a jagged puzzle piece, discolored and misplaced. But this is as good a stopping place as they could find and they cannot run forever. The money is low and Eponine has only planned so far._

_Truth is, she's terrified but Eponine Thenardier does not do fear, so it turns to anger. Anger she knows, and on its flames she thrives. So when she sees a hiring sign in a café window, she marches up to it with purpose. There is a bell on the door that chimes as she strides in. There is a girl behind the counter, perhaps a few years older than herself, with an abundance of brown curls and brightly painted lips. _

"_I saw your sign. I need a job."_

_Eponine knows how she must look, a seventeen-year-old girl who is much too skinny wearing ripped jeans and too much eyeliner, balancing a toddler on her hip. She raises her chin up another notch to hide her doubts and waits to be dismissed but the girl merely smiles and tells her to come in._

* * *

**Next Chapter:** _Enjolras is coming to town…_

**Story disclaimer: **Les Mis is clearly not mine; the only thing I share with Hugo is a birthday.


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